We ate Pączki for Fat Thursday when we lived in Poland, but it wasn’t until we returned to the United States that I made my own. Like everything else, homemade is always better.
If I’m perfectly honest, I couldn’t understand the fuss about store-bought Pączki. It’s probably because I was, based on the appearance, expecting an American doughnut.
I found the pastry itself too dense and bread-y and the jam too scant. Now that I’ve had homemade, I know that all of you who have enjoyed mama’s or babcia’s paczki were holding out on me!
Fat Tuesday vs. Fat Thursday
Did you think I made a mistake above when I said Fat Thursday? While in the United States and many other countries, we mark the day before Ash Wednesday as Fat Tuesday, a day to use up the oil in the house, so traditional foods for this day are fried, before we start the penitential time of Lent and six weeks of plain simple foods.
In Poland, the day to eat fried treats in preparation for Lent is the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, and on Fat Thursday, Poles will eat 100 million paczki!
It’s not just a matter of tradition, good luck is involved! According to culture.pl, a Polish proverb proclaims that
those who don’t eat a stack of pączki on Fat Thursday will have an empty barn and their field destroyed by mice.
Homemade Paczki
My own Paczki? The outside is crisp; the dough is rich and delicate, like an orange-scented brioche.
The jam, in my case orange marmalade, really is just an accent. As I said, homemade is always better! So with the last week of Karnawal approaching, let me urge you to make your own paczki for Fat Thursday (or Tuesday).
Fry in lard, bake, air-fry?
Traditionally, lard is used to cook the pre-Lenten treat. The idea behind this and other fried goodies this time of year was to use up the oil in the house because Lent would mean six weeks without fried foods and other rich meals.
It’s a little ironic that now there is interest in baking pączki, and more recently air-frying pączki. In the name of science, I tried all three cooking methods with my most recent batch.
The pączki above are from left to right: fried in lard, baked, air-fried. Here are our thoughts on the three versions.
Fried – this was our favorite for taste and texture. There was a light crispness to the outside, and the lard adds another flavor note.
Baked – baking is by far the easiest method; it also had the most rise. Put a bunch on a baking sheet and give them 8 minutes in a 375° oven. I didn’t even bother to turn them over midway through baking. There was no oil mess to clean up. They were light and tender.
Air-fried – Our air-fryer is on the small side. I was able to cook two at a time at 350° for about 8 minutes, turning them over halfway through. I lined the bottom of the basket with parchment and placed the dough on the paper before starting the air-fryer. When I checked them halfway through the cooking time, the tops were beginning to brown and the bottom still looked raw, so turning them seemed to be necessary. This wasn’t as simple as oven baking, but the final product was equally light and tender.
While the baked and air-fried are not in keeping with tradition, they still yield delicious pastry.
An old recipe for pączki
Although I’ve doubled the flour used, I’ve used the recipe from Polish Cookery, the translation of Uniwersalna Ksiazka Kucharska (the Universal Cookbook, published in the early 1900s) by Marja Ochorowica-Monatowa, which bills itself as Poland’s best-selling cookbook adapted for American kitchens.
(You can purchase it via Amazon links on this page. I participate in the Amazon Associates program, so purchases via Amazon links on my website generate a small commission for me.)
This was the first of my many Polish cookbooks. It’s translated and adapted by Jean Karsavina, originally published in 1958. I have to agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Karsavina’s remarks in the preface:
Poland, like France, is a country where people really know food. One can stop at a peasant home in the country, a wayside inn, a modest restaurant in a working-class neighborhood, and be served a meal with remembering. Good food is tradition. Polish hospitality is legendary.
Gone from the original book in Polish are the recipes for Roast Boar’s Head and Turkey Garnished with Two Dozen Roast Field Thrushes, and the original author’s assertion that the book’s purpose was to “give brides a knowledge of how cooking is done, so that they may supervise the servants properly.”
This was essential, Ms. Montowa says because, “everyone knows how apt servants are to cheat, especially if the lady of the house makes no attempt to interest herself in planning menus or fails to check bills and accounts. If,” she tells us, “there is time on one’s schedule for singing lessons, piano practice, water coloring, and fine embroidery, surely there is also a half-hour each day which can be made available for one’s housewifely duties. . .”
It’s a long way from my great-grandmother who was raising 10 children, homesteading with her cattle-ranching husband in the Arizona Territory at the time. 😉
Whether you are supervising the staff or making your own pastry in homage to pioneer ancestors, I hope you’ll give Paczki for Fat Thursday a try this year, especially if you’ve never had homemade.
Give Karnawal a good send-off. My friend Klaudia tells me the nicest and most traditional jam to use it a rose jam, but you can certainly use other fruit jams or marmalade.
Check out my recipe for Angel Wings another favorite fried food for Fat Thursday.
Smacznego!
Lois
PS- Bezy are a great way to use your leftover egg whites!
I love paczki – click on the photo to buy the shirt from the Polish Shirt Store!
Paczki for Fat Thursday (Tlusty Czwartek)
- Prep Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: about 2 dozen 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: Polish
Description
A brioche-like, jam filled pastry eaten to mark the last week before Lent
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour
- 2 cups boiling milk
- 1 packet of dry yeast
- 1/4 cup lukewarm milk
- 6 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 vanilla bean pod, split and scraped
- 2 teaspoons grated orange zest
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- flour, jam, deep fat for frying
Instructions
- Stir 1 cup flour into boiling milk
- Remove from heat and beat until smooth
- Cool
- Dissolve yeast in the 1/4 cup milk
- Add to the flour mixture
- Stir and let stand half an hour
- Cream egg yolks and sugar, add vanilla and orange rind
- Stir into the dough when it begins to rise
- Add remaining flour and butter and beat until it forms a sticky dough
- Cover and let stand 45-60 minutes, until doubled in size
- Turn out on a floured board, knead just a few times
- Divide dough in half and roll to 1/4 inch thick if you’re sandwiching two pieces together 1/2 inch thick if you’ll be filling after cooking
- Cut out circles
- Place a teaspoon of jam, the fruit only, not runny syrup, on half of the circles
- Cover with remaining circles, press edges together
- Cover and let rise again for about 30 minutes
- Fry a few at a time in deep fat, 340 -345 F for about 4 minutes, taking care not to burn the dough
- Drain and serve rolled in powdered sugar, granulated sugar, or glaze
Notes
This cookbook layers the jam between two cutouts. If you have a long pastry tip, you could also pipe jam into paczki after frying, or slice your plain paczki and filled with whipped cream and berries, or glaze and top with candied citrus peel. I used this recipe to candy the peel from tangerine picked from our tree and this glaze by dipping warm pastry. I liked that the glaze was less messy to eat than powdered sugar.
,
An accountant by trade and a food blogger since 2009, Lois Britton fell in love with Polish cuisine during the years she lived in Poznań, Poland. As the creator of PolishHousewife.com, she loves connecting readers with traditional Polish recipes. Lois has a graduate certificate in Food Writing and Photography from the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Polish Housewife Cookbook, available on Amazon and on her website.
Lori Wedeking
Much to my surprise a supermarket in Lincoln Nebraska does a good job of making pączki. My friend always gets them when I visit there.
polishhousewife
In Lincoln, Nebrask?!! How thoughtful of your friend!
Pat Adams
These sound far better than the PA Dutch version of fastnachts we experienced in Eastern Pennsylvania on Fat Tuesday.
polishhousewife
Pat, you are too kind. I was happily surprised with how well they turned out. And this is after I put the lot in the fridge overnight. I didn’t give myself enough time, and they were ready to fry yesterday just as we were heading out to dinner, but no harm was done. The dough recovered nicely!
Cheri Tessier
Thank you for the recipe. I can’t wait to try them. I was always in the kitchen with my Babci. Watching her cook was inspiring. However, like many before she too her recipes with her when she passed. We did try one time to write down what she did but it was difficult because like any good cook, she rarely measured anything. Her paczki seemed to be much fluffier than the ones pictured but she did fill after cooking. Do you think these are a bit flatter because of adding the jam before cooking?
polishhousewife
Hi Cheri, it can be so hard to recreate an unwritten recipe. It took multiple tries to get close to my grandmother’s vinegar rolls.
I think filling after frying would make for fluffier paczki. Mine might have been fluffier if I’d been able to fry immediately after the rise. They had to go in the fridge over night.
Jean
Thank you for sharing the ones you made with us. They were delicious. It’s a perfect breakfast. Like a really good donut, without being too sweet.
polishhousewife
Not too sweet; can we call paczki health food?
Alicja
Maybe non-traditional ones! Traditional fried pączki are certainly not! One can have up to 500 calories! But honestly… some are so delicious! really worth it <3
polishhousewife
I guess that’s why we don’t eat them everyday!
David
I have never heard of these – nor Fat Thursday! I don’t think either side of my family celebrated – just Fat Tuesday. I wish we had, because these look wonderful!
polishhousewife
It seems like everyone observes Lent in Poland, so why not get in a full
week of celebrating!
Irine
From a practicing Polish Catholic, I must gently correct you: it is “Fat TUESday”, not “Thursday.”
The tradition comes from Ash Wednesday, when Catholics begin the season of Lent. A day of fasting is required, and in the past (and still today in some cultures) the fasting not only includes abstinence from meat, but also dairy products. Households would use recipes like doughnuts with lots of eggs, to get rid of all the dairy *before* Ash Wednesday…hence, Tuesday was the day to make and eat eggy-ladden recipes.
Looking forward to Pacski Day!
Irine
Ah, I stand corrected by my son: the Thursday before Ash Wednesday is “Fat Thursday”, although here in America they celebrate Paczki Day on Fat Tuesday, along with other cultures’ traditions.
polishhousewife
Yes, in PL it started a full week before Lent. It was news to me when I arrived in Poznań.
polishhousewife
Irine, thank you for offering the most gentle correction.
Janice Wilson
This was first attempt at working with yeast. They came out pretty good, but seemed to fry up awfully fast with the oil at 360. Any hints?? Did I do something wrong??
polishhousewife
It was probably a little too hot at 360. It can be a juggling act if you’re cooking on a stovetop, but it’s best to fry at about 345.
Charles
Do you have a recipe for the glaze??
polishhousewife
Something like this? 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 – 4 tablespoons of milk (depending on the desired texture. More will make it more like a glaze than a frosting).
Lisa
Hi. These look delicious – I’m specifically interested in baking them. However I’m a creme & custard gal vs jelly filling. Do you have both a creme and a custard recipe that you would use to fill these? Thank you.
polishhousewife
Lisa, you can try this custard. Be sure to chill it before piping into your paczki. https://polishhousewife.com/kremowka-papieska-or-papal-cream-cake/
Stephanie
LOVE this recipe!!! We baked them this year and I thought they came out perfect. I did have to cook mine at 380 degrees F for 10 min, but every oven is different. This year’s batch we filled with either cheese, custard, or Apricot Jam. Completely opposite of tradition, I had to visit our local farmers market to get fresh milk, churned butter, and eggs. Farm fresh never disappoints. Thank you for sharing this recipe!!!
polishhousewife
Your fillings sound delicious; you’re inspiring me!
Janice
I make my mothers recipe every year. People who never had homemade -Dunkin’ Donuts Jelly Bismarcks are not Paczki. Her recipe is similar to this but hers calls for 7 cups flour and 4yolks /1whole egg oh and 1tsp salt. I use vanilla bean paste. I used to make double recipe for handouts but now I stick to single and still give out to family because I can’t eat them all.
My mother also had a recipe for Warsaw Paczki that used sweet cream instead of milk, double yeast, double egg yolks and a jigger of rum. Never tried it. Maybe this is the year.
Michelle
Have you made the dough and refrigerated before the second rise? I opened my big mouth and have to make 3 billion and I think I’d like to make my dough ahead.
polishhousewife
I haven’t done it with paczki, Michelle, but I’ve done it successfully with other bread recipes.
Karen
I am curious to know if the orange zest is still necessary when not using marmalade?
polishhousewife
It’s not necessary in any case, Karen. It adds a nice note to the dough, but you can surely omit it.
Anna Marie
Can I use vanilla extract instead of the bean? If yes, how much?
Thank you
Lois Britton
1/2 vanilla bean = 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
Cindy
Has anyone tried to make Paczki gluten free? I cannot find anywhere near me that sells them. I use to make Paczki with my Grandma when I was young. She always filled them with plum filling. I love the idea of baked. Unfortunately I’m now gluten free. Thanks for the help in advance.
Stefanie
Is the dough supposed to be really sticky after the first rise? And how much flour do you use to knead and roll?
Lois Britton
Yes, it is very sticky. I use as little flour as possible. Enough to be able to knead, but without making it too stiff.